Reverend Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, has called on the United States government to “stop allowing immigration of Muslims into this country.”
“Each day’s news seems to reveal new horrors from militant Islam,” Graham said Monday in a post on Facebook. “Can it be that the world is no longer as shocked by Christians having their heads cut off and then ISIS proudly promoting this on video? We should continue to be horrified and nauseated.”
“We should make sure our government and the current administration recognizes Islam for the danger it is, and that they are doing all they can to work against it,” he said.
“Our government needs to: (1) Immediately look at immigration reform to halt all immigration of Muslims from countries that have active terrorist cells—the threat this poses to our nation is huge and could end up costing thousands of lives in the future if we don’t act now. And (2) Take immediate military action to defeat ISIS.”
“The influence of radical Islam is spreading, not diminishing,” he concluded.
Rev. Graham went on Fox News Monday morning to discuss with Gretchen Carlson the disturbing new video that was released by ISIS showing the mass execution of Ethiopian Christians in Libya. He reiterated his call for a moratorium on Muslim immigration.
The reverend stated that Obama is not doing enough to stop ISIS and that “he is responsible for ISIS” because he pulled troops out of Iraq and created a vacuum which ISIS filled.
He called on the president to “declare war with ISIS,” saying that “we need to go wherever they are — whether it’s Iraq, whether it’s Libya.” He added, “We need to put boots on the ground. We’re not going to defeat ISIS the way we’re doing it now.”
Graham went on to say that “we have to stop allowing immigration of Muslims into this country who come from countries that have active terror cells. I am calling for the halt to all immigration of Muslims to this country if they come from a country that has Islamic terror cells.”
Carlson challenged him, asking, “How do we know, though? How do we know that they are actually terrorists?”
“You don’t,” Graham answered matter-of-factly. “You just can’t allow people to keep coming from these countries that are going to bring terrorism into this nation.”
Gretchen pressed him further, saying, “I’m just wondering if we’re going to run into difficulty with discrimination if we do something as drastic as you’re suggesting.”
“Of course — we’re going to have people calling this discrimination but this is war,” Graham insisted. “If you’re in a war, you’re going to have to discriminate.”
It’s extremely unlikely Rev. Graham’s call for an immigration moratorium will be heeded by the Obama administration. Even in the days after 9/11 similar calls were quickly shot down.
Refugee resettlement contractors have been demanding 12,000-15,000 Syrians a year be admitted into the country. The government is reportedly reviewing 11,000 resettlement applications from Syrians — the vast majority of them Muslims.
The United States is scheduled to take in its largest tranche of Syrian refugees to date — up to 2,000 by this fall, compared with a total of about 700 since the civil war in Syria began four years ago, according to the State Department.
The U.S. decision to accept more refugees reflects how swiftly the Syrian civil war has morphed into the most pressing humanitarian crisis in recent years. Generally, resettling large numbers of refugees happens long after other options are exhausted, like the possibility of displaced people eventually returning home.
Recently, the FBI testified to the House Homeland Security Committee that there is no way they can properly screen the Syrians.
US authorities are facing a difficult task screening Syrian refugees for potential extremists because of a shortage of intelligence from the war-torn country, officials told lawmakers Wednesday.
Michael Steinbach, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said the US government had data and intelligence to draw on when it performed background checks on refugees from Iraq in recent years but in the case of Syria, there was “a lack of information.”
America is not ready to face this problem yet because nobody in “the land of the free” wants to be accused of being “Islamophobic.” But the day may come when they have no choice but to choose between liberty or mass Muslim immigration.
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